Most first time founders want to run ads before they have proof the market wants what they built. Here are five practical tips on go to market strategy I walked a pre revenue startup founder through this week, on getting early customers, speaking to your ICPs yourself, and knowing where not to waste your time.
I had a mentoring call this week with a founder about to launch his MVP. Interesting product, a real problem he is solving for people close to him, and genuine energy about getting it to market. Like most first time founders, he was already thinking about ads.
I told him to hold off. Until the market is validated and a decent number of customers are staying, paying for leads is pointless. At this stage, the founder needs to do the legwork himself: talk to the market, run the sales conversations, and hear firsthand what is being said.
Here is the go to market framework I walked him through, useful for any pre revenue founder working toward their early customers.
Before spending on growth, get clear on four things: your ideal customer profile, your unique proposition, your pricing, and your distribution channel.
For this founder, the ICP was micro business owners, businesses with fewer than four employees where the owner is buried in day to day operations and has no time for anything complicated. That single detail shaped everything else. The proposition had to be the least friction and the lowest barrier to adoption, not a longer feature list. Pricing had to be simple, self explanatory, and value based (I really like this Y Combinator video on pricing strategy), since a busy micro business owner will not sit through a sales led pricing conversation. And distribution, at this stage, is you: direct outreach, not paid acquisition, so every early customer can be traced back to a real conversation.
1. Speak to your ICPs and do the sales yourself. No one can sell it better than you, and no shortcut replaces hearing it firsthand. This might sound obvious, but you would be surprised how many founders think they know what the market wants after speaking to a handful of people. That is a dangerous assumption to build a business on.
2. Don't feel pressured to be on Instagram or TikTok. If you are B2B, this is not where your customers make decisions. Build a presence there once you have more bandwidth. The same goes for LinkedIn: if you cannot do a half decent job on it, do not spread yourself thin trying. Go all in on sales and feedback until you have your early adopter base, and how big that needs to be depends on your sector.
3. Look at similar or adjacent businesses in mature, bigger markets. Use them to shortcut your own learning curve. I get inspiration this way all the time, whether that is for GTM or branding.
4. Be part of a startup community for learning and networking. Business can come from it too, alongside others who are hustling the same way.
5. Get help that won't break the bank. There are plenty of incubator programs and mentoring platforms with strong lineups of mentors and subject matter experts. Shortcut the learning curve by checking in with them. Interns are also great when you need extra hands (I wrote about it here).
During the early building stage, focus on validating the market and improving the product to meet its need, building a solid early adopter base rather than spending on sleek branding or advertising. If any of this is useful for where your business is at, I mentor founders on their early GTM motion through GrowthMentor.
Main image by Per Lööv on Unsplash
Nina Jung is a Sydney-based growth strategist who works with founders as a fractional CMO and CRO, bringing senior-level strategy and hands-on execution at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. She also mentors early-stage founders and business students through GrowthMentor, Startmate, and UNSW.
